Shalampax Speaks

Hey peeps, I have more news in what seems to be shaping up to be a continuing saga of Openfly’s flight from Shalamapax.

You’ll recall that in my last post I told you that Openfly refused to communicate with any Shalampaxian other than her best friend, Cherrytart. That was true. However, I found out that Openfly has been able to use her own email account while aboard the ship.

I sent her a message begging her to speak with me about her ordeal. At first she refused, but I  successfully bribed her to change her mind. I told her that if she ever comes back to Shalampax I will pick up her bar tab for a full week if she took me into her confidence.

I’m hoping she never comes back. I’m fairly wealthy, but I don’t have enough money to cover her tab for a day, let alone a week. And I don’t think anyone would be willing to loan me that much money.

The first question I had for Openfly was whether, as she told Cherrytart, she indeed had no idea why the zoologist locked her in the observation room.

I was right. She knew more than she had been letting on. (That is to say, she knew more about her predicament than she was letting on. When it comes to general knowledge, she is fully as ignorant as she appears.) True, she doesn’t know why she is being held captive, but she does know which of her actions led to the zoologist taking the action he took.

Before I get into that, so I can stop calling him “the zoologist,” allow me to give you his a name. You might as well allow me to do that because I’m going to give it to you whether you allow me to or not.

His name is Dr. Donald Rivers. He’s entitled to call himself “doctor” because he has a Ph.D. in zoology from Muddy York University. Generally, people just call him “Don.”

As Openfly tells it, things were grand at the start. For the first couple of days that she was on board, she and Don had sex four or five times a day. This was very exciting for Openfly because, being a zoologist, Don knew some really wild animal positions. Although, doing it in a dorsoventral position while swinging from a chandelier—like orangutans sometimes do, except they swing from branches rather than chandeliers—was quite a challenge for both of them.

Then, one morning, she told him she wouldn’t sleep with him for the next few days. Openfly refuses to tell me why she withheld sex from Don, but whatever the reason, that’s when Don locked her in the observation room.

At first Openfly thought it was petulance, jealousy or revenge on Don’s part. But, apart from holding her captive, he’s been very genial and civil with her. And he apologizes several times a day for keeping her in the observation room.

Besides, while Openfly does rank as, to use the street vernacular, “one hot babe” on the Shalampaxian scale of female beauty, that still places her only slightly above “repulsive” on any non-Shalampaxian scale. So it’s unlikely that withholding sex would drive Don to do what he did.

Openfly seems truly stumped as to why she is in the predicament she is in. She would like some answers. So would I.

Openfly gave me Don’s email address and I’ve dashed off a note to him asking for an explanation. I haven’t got a response yet, but I’ll fill you in if and when I do get one.

Openfly Serial bar tab, captive, sex

Peeps, if you’re regular readers of my column you’ll remember that a few days ago I told you that Openfly was missing. Well, she’s been found!

Actually, “found” isn’t quite the right word. “Heard from” is more accurate.

Openfly has Internet access and has been exchanging emails with her best friend, Cherrytart. In fact, it seems that this communication has been going on for a couple of days now. Cherrytart tried to keep it a secret because, as you’ll recall from my previous post, she was hoping Openfly would be declared to be presumed dead, freeing up her apartment to be taken over by Cherrytart.

The only reason I learned of Openfly’s emails is that Cherrytart inadvertently left her computer on, with one of the emails up on the screen, when one of her lovers dropped by. Cherrytart went into the bathroom, where she spent 45 minutes trying to make herself as aesthetically appealing as any Shalampaxian can possible make herself or himself look, which is still several notches on the hideous side of plug-ugly.

While she was in the bathroom, her lover du jour or, to me more accurate, lover d’heure, spotted the email. He read it and then went through Cherrytart’s inbox and read all of the other recent emails from Openfly as well.

As it happens, that lover is a good friend of mine. My reportage has been aided by the fact that, apart from the frequent sex, Cherrytart’s lover doesn’t particularly like Cherrytart. He couldn’t give a fig about keeping her secrets. As soon as he left her apartment he spilled the beans about Openfly to me.

Here’s what happened.

Shalampaxians will recall that, during one of those very rare periods when the winds almost approached calm, we spotted a large ship not far off Shalampax’s coast. We all were, of course, hoping that one of our regular horrendous gales would blow through and crash the ship up against the sharp rocks that surround our island. That would have allowed us, as is our custom, to plunder anything that remained intact on the ship.

Unfortunately for us, but fortunately for the ship’s occupants, that didn’t happen. The ship pulled safely away from our shores before the winds picked up.

But, prior to the ship’s departure, Openfly hauled out of storage and floated a double-hulled raft that she had fashioned out of used swizzle sticks that she had collected over her long drinking career. Openfly made it safely to the ship and immediately requested, and was granted, asylum.

The ship is a research vessel occupied by zoologists, marine biologists and three professional bagpipe players. They are on an around-the-world voyage of exploration to investigate the effect of bagpipe playing on the behavior of the world’s sea and land creatures.

One of the zoologists is interested in studying only how long land animals can listen to the relentless drone of bagpipes without developing severe psychosis. Not being interested in marine animals, he took advantage of the ship’s current lengthy time between ports-of-call to take a break from his research.

With time on his hands, the zoologist befriended Openfly. The two of them shacked up together for the first two days of Openfly’s stay on the ship.

This blissful arrangement ended abruptly, however, when the zoologist locked Openfly in a room that is normally used by the researchers to observe the interaction between land animals and bagpipe players. The bagpipe players mistakenly believe that it is the animals that are being studied.

The room is normally used only while the ship is at a port-of-call because the scientists never remove animals from their native territories. As a result, Openfly had it to herself.

The zoologist now spends most of his time observing Openfly through the room’s observation windows. He has not made any further sexual advances toward her.

Apart from being confined, Openfly is being treated well and has unrestricted access to the ship’s satellite-based Internet connection. What’s more, Openfly is receiving three meals a day that are, in her words, “1,000 times better than anything I ever tasted in freaking Shamlampax.”

Openfly, who insists that the only Shalampaxian she will communicate with is Cherrytart, told Cherrytart that she does not know why she is being held captive. Openfly may not know why she’s locked up—although I think there’s a good chance that she’s lying about not knowing—but I intend to get to the bottom of this, no matter what it takes. I’ll keep you posted.

Openfly Serial bagpipe players, captive, marine biologists, ship, zoologists